


The Smallest Park with the Biggest Time Loop (or 23 Times Leslie Knope Woke Up Alone and One Time She Didn't)

by Nutriyum_Addict



Category: Parks and Recreation
Genre: Emotional Sex, F/M, Groundhog Day, Reconciliation, Reconciliation Sex, Time Loop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-17
Updated: 2014-08-17
Packaged: 2018-02-13 14:43:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2154435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nutriyum_Addict/pseuds/Nutriyum_Addict
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leslie is stuck in a time loop and it's quickly turning into the worst day of her life--her best friend keeps telling her she's an enormous steamroller (even though it sounds more like a bulldozer), Ben keeps leaving her, and Jerry continues to be a huge klutz.</p><p>It's sort of a Parks and Rec meets Groundhog Day thing. Takes place during Smallest Park.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. This is How it Starts

The first time it happens, he walks away from her. Or rather, she lets him go. 

Leslie says she understands that he doesn't want to have anymore contact with her--that she finally gets it. And even though Ben tells her that he doesn't actually want it to be that way, he says it's for the best regardless.

They both agree and then she wraps her red wool coat tightly around herself to try and keep out the fall chill on this cold, clear night and watches him walk away from her, from their Smallest Park, from everything. 

After he rounds the corner and she can no longer see Ben, she gets in her own car, drives to Ann's house, and cries.

When her clock radio wakes her up the next morning at six, Crazy Ira and the Douche are doing the same exact bit they had done Thursday morning, which is weird, but not truly alarming. No, that's later when she gets to work and Councilman Howser once again drops his binder right as he crosses by Leslie in front of the Parks office, Tom is wearing the same exact outfit that he had worn the previous day (she's _never_ seen him wear the same thing twice in a row), and Jerry trips on his way to the copier and spills his coffee down his shirt, at the same exact time as yesterday--9:35 AM.

Oh and also her computer and her phone both say that it's November 17th. 

Again.


	2. Drinking with a Mysterious Stranger at The Bulge

That second day Leslie just goes through the motions, utterly confused. She thinks maybe April is behind this elaborate prank, but that doesn't really make sense because April is out of the office most of the day with Andy and Ron, checking out college classes. If she were doing this, she'd want to see the fruits of her labor--Leslie slowly unhinge. 

So she talks with Ann, once again comes to the slow realization that she is a steamroller (although she still thinks that _bulldozer_ is a more accurate metaphor), and calls Ben and leaves him half a dozen voice mails asking him to meet with her at their park. Like that first night, they decide to end contact for good, and then heartbroken, she goes to Ann's house, finally sobbing against her best friend's shoulder. 

But this time, they also watch the first two Harry Potter movies after Leslie calms down enough to pay attention to the TV.

A few days into it, she lays in bed and listens to Crazy Ira and the Douche as they once again, obnoxiously quiz Brittany, Candi, and Serena from the Glitter Factory on math problems. Leslie can't help herself--she picks up her phone, calls in, and gives them the answers to all six questions--five of which they haven't even asked the strippers yet. 

When William Barnes calls her later in the day to remind her how popular Crazy Ira and the Douche are in Pawnee, and also suggests that maybe since she's a city council candidate, that she shouldn't be on the air telling them that they're sexist jerks, she sees his point, but Leslie doesn't really care. She won't do it again and even if she did, no one will remember but her. 

Of course even later that day, when she's dropping some forms off on the second floor, she unexpectedly walks by Ben in the hallway and she can't help but notice that he gives her a small smile as he quickly passes by her. Okay--so maybe she will call in again.

Days later (at least for her), Leslie tells herself she's only going to ask him because he likes sci-fi stuff and maybe he'll have an idea as to what is going on. She waits until she knows that Chris is in a meeting with Mayor Gunderson and Ben is alone in the City Manager's office. Leslie walks by his door, sees that he's focused on some papers spread out on his desk and steps inside. Quickly, before Ben can look up and fix her with a look of discouragement, she takes a seat on the other side of his desk.

He raises his head and is clearly a bit surprised, but before he can say anything, she asks, "Have you noticed anything weird going on?" 

Ben stares at her. "Weird? What?" And then without giving her time to clarify, he adds, "Um, no."

"Are you sure? The past few days...being very similar? Repeating somehow?"

He doesn't answer, just narrows his eyes at her like he's trying to figure out what she's doing--what she's trying to steamroll him into this time. While she sits there, she can't help but recognize his brown cardigan as the one she's worn previously, throwing it on in the middle of the night once, before sneaking off to the bathroom at his house. That seems so long ago.

"Would you tell me if you had? Noticed anything strange?" She asks before sighing. 

"Leslie. Stop," he pauses, and gives her a look that's the same mix of sadness, trepidation, and exhaustion that she's gotten used to since....well, not since they'd broken up exactly, but definitely since the night she drove him to that abandoned gas station because she couldn't bear to see him talking with Shauna Malwae-Tweep. 

It's the look that breaks her heart into small, scattered pieces. It's the look he gave her before using ordinary, regular, everyday scissors (instead of the correct, over-sized ceremonial ones), to cut the red ribbon he had hastily tied around the Smallest Park. Right before he and Chris had walked away together and left her standing there with the remnants of the protest and cook-out she had organized to keep her and Ben working together until at least 2070.

"I don't know what you're talking about but I can't do this anymore," he says quietly, not looking at her.

"I can't either Ben," she almost-whispers, getting up and turning to leave. But before she's through the doorway, she swings back around and grabs a handful of his newly replenished pens, pencils, and highlighters. This bunch (unlike the others that are still in her office drawer), will probably just be back here in the morning, so what does it really matter? 

When she gets home later that night, Leslie sets the office supplies that she took from Ben on her kitchen table, eats three double chocolate brownies for dinner and takes an Ambien. When she wakes up in the morning, it's to a different version of the same exact damn thing.

The pens, pencils, and highlighters are gone from her kitchen table.

There's one day where she really feels like she can't take it even one more time. At 9:30 she walks over to Jerry, grabs the mug full of luke-warm coffee off his desk, and pours it all over his shirt herself, five minutes before he would have made the same mess on his own. 

Then she spends all morning in her office with the door shut alternately crying and researching _time loops_ on the internet, before giving up when April walks in around noon and hands Leslie a triple mocha with extra whipped cream. That small kindness makes her start to cry again.

April takes the coffee back. "This is just because Tom told me you dumped Jerry's coffee on his shirt this morning," she pauses. When Leslie continues to sniffle, she adds, "Stop doing that or you can't have it back."

Leslie looks at her, face still scrunching up. She's sure she looks pathetic, but she doesn't care. She holds her hand out, pleading with her watery eyes. It had extra whipped cream and she's just so exhausted. And sad. And confused.

"It's no big deal. I just found it outside by the garbage. Here, just take it. God." 

The triple mocha is put back in her outstretched hand, and then younger woman leans down to give her a quick, awkward hug, before quickly walking out of Leslie's office. 

A couple of hours later Leslie looks at the clock on the wall and knows Ann will be showing up in a few minutes and she just...can't. Can't be called a steamroller by her best friend or even proactively try to start the whole conversation off by telling Ann that yes, she knows that she is a steamroller. She steamrolls. She's a massive, enormous, runaway steamroller with a cement brick on the gas pedal and the rolley-thing in front of the machine and everything. She gets it.

She doesn't want to insist that Ann loves Harry Potter movies (but how could she not? They're so good!) or even give up and again ask Ann what her favorite movie is--how on earth can it possibly be _Pretty Woman_? And she certainly doesn't want to talk Ann into dropping everything and buying plane tickets to Paris online one more time. Because, really, although it was a fun idea, it's not like they actually got to go anywhere since the soonest flight didn't leave until the next morning.

Starting right now, she flat-out refuses to participate in this any longer, whatever-the-hell is happening to her.

So, she ducks out of City Hall at two in the afternoon, fifteen minutes before she knows Ann will stop by and drives right to The Bulge where she spends her afternoon on a barstool, talking to a nice man older man with grey hair, a large bushy mustache, and a deep, mysterious voice while throwing back whipped cream-topped, sexually-explicit-named cocktails on the house. 

Leslie takes a cab home a few hours later and tipsily calls Ben and tries to get him to come by so they can...talk. 

Looking back on it later that night, she's pretty sure she also mentioned how much she missed _talking about_ certain political figures and the sex acts they were code for. Because, that's exactly what a person will do after spending three hours drinking free _blow jobs_ and _screaming orgasms_ in Pawnee's gay bar, instead of staying at work and reliving for the 19th time, what is quickly becoming the single worst day of her entire life.

Ben had ended up exasperatedly hanging up on her and really, Leslie can't blame him at all. 

She absolutely should not have called her ex-boyfriend and still technically-boss, and told him that she thought about him while she was drinking blow jobs and that she really, really wanted to Lady Bird Johnson the hell out of him. God, she really fucked the pooch on that one (sure, she thinks the term is still a little vulgar, but sometimes _making love to the pooch_ just doesn't do justice to the extent of the...screwing).

The next morning, Leslie's never been so glad to hear Brittany, Candi, and Serena on the radio, attempting once again to divide 4,341 by 283 and to look out her window and see her car right there, safe and sound in front of her house, just like she never left it there the afternoon before.


	3. Let's Just Say Screw It

Leslie spends the next few iterations catching Councilman Howser's binder before it hits the floor, complimenting Tom on his polka dot tie, and once she even gets up and takes Jerry's coffee mug from him before he walks to the copier and hands it back when he's done, because no matter how amusing it is, she just can't bear watching him slosh it all over his plaid shirt this many times in a row. And aside from one evening when she inexplicably yells out, "I'm pregnant," to Ben as he turns to leave the park or the time she writes Andy a check for one thousand dollars and then grabs ten Mouse Rat CDs, handing them out to people walking down City Hall's first floor corridor--it's been pretty standard. Her new-normal. 

And after a disappointing morning early on, when she discovered that just like Ben's pens, a breakfast-food themed quilt that she had started the night before was gone in the morning, she sometimes now stays up as late as she can and works on improving her French or reads through a new political biography. Thankfully, that knowledge isn't gone by six in the morning.

Through all of this, there is one thing that is pretty constant--she watches Ben walk away from her over and over, no matter how hard she tries to listen to him and understand his feelings. His feelings that steadfastly remain that although he doesn't want to not have contact with her, it's for the best. They simply can't return to being just friends.

And so here they are. Again. 

After a full afternoon of texting Ann about six times an hour, Leslie had called his phone at four in the afternoon, like most of the times before--except for those couple of days when she just couldn't bear to meet with him, that afternoon she got hammered at The Bulge, and the one day she got in her car at noon and just drove south for eight hours, ending up just outside of Atlanta, going to sleep in a motel room and waking up in her own bed at six on the dot. 

But this afternoon, she leaves Ben one (and only one) succinct, straight-to-the-point voicemail, although she does tack an apology onto the end too this time. 

_Hi. It's me. Leslie. Hi. Please meet me at the Smallest Park at six. I'd like to talk, but more importantly, I want to listen to you and what you want, Ben. I promise. That's all. And I'm really sorry about how I have been acting._

"If you don't want to have any more contact with me, I finally understand," she tells him once more, while he sits on the park bench with obvious discomfort and avoids her eyes.

"I don't want that. Really. But I just think it's for the best," he responds measuredly, now looking at her and she has to remind herself not to mouth the sentences along with him. 

"Okay," she answers, even though her mind is vehemently disagreeing with her words. Like it always does at this point.

"Okay," he agrees, then repeats it again, before getting up and starting to walk away from her for the 24th miserable, unbearable time.

"There is another option," she says suddenly, before she even knows exactly what that is. Leslie just knows it can't be _this_. And then the words are out of her mouth before she can even think it through. "We could just say _screw it_ and do this thing for real."

"What?"

"I miss you like crazy. I think about you all the time. I want to be with you. So, let's just say screw it." 

He says "No," softly but he doesn't leave, he absolutely does not turn and leave, so that's new. 

"We would have to tell Chris," Ben says finally.

"Yeah."

"It could turn into a scandal."

"Yeah," Leslie agrees again.

"It could hurt your campaign."

"Yes." It could. She doesn't care because she simply can't stand to watch him walk away from her again.

"How would you imagine we do this?"

"I don't know," she answers honestly. Leslie just knows that they can't not try. And if it costs her the election, well, then honestly, fuck that too. She takes an unsteady breath and continues, almost scared to meet his eyes. "But I know how I feel and I want to be with you. But I'm done steamrolling people. This is how I feel. How do you feel?" 

She swallows back a cry and then waits for him...for Ben to tell her what he wants. And he does, it's just not in words. Within seconds he's holding the sides of her head in his hands and kissing her, and Leslie wants to sob with relief. They continue to clutch at each other, still kissing, all while a light dusting of snow starts to fall down around them.

Leslie's house is a mess, but neither of them pays the pile of magazines, books, and boxes much mind. Ben manages to trip over a birdhouse as he walks backwards, trying to unbutton Leslie's blouse and lead her up the stairs. Over the last few months, he's clearly forgotten where the paths are and how to reach point B from point A unscathed.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah, but Leslie, let's maybe clean up a bit. I can help--"

"You're talking about this now?" She asks, then gasps when he runs his thumb back and forth over her bra-covered nipple. 

"Yes. Now is good," he smiles. "Soon, I'll have you weak and defenseless, ready to agree to anything."

She pulls back and laughs. "And you're going to use that power...to get me to clean my house?"

"Um...oh, wait. Maybe not. New plan. Come here," he pulls her flush against his chest, kissing her deeply, before moving down to suck on the skin of her neck. "Let's get back to that thought later."

His hands wander down to her pants, he's unbuttoning and zipping, before she steps out of them, leaving the discarded J.Crew trousers on her stairs. His shirt is next, somewhere in the hallway and pretty soon, they're both just in their underwear, outside her bedroom. And they just can't stop kissing, and touching, and grinding into each other.

"Ben. Ben. God, I--" she trails off, barely above a whisper.

"It's okay," he kisses her forehead. 

Leslie is a very emotional person. She knows this about herself and it's something almost all of her past boyfriends have found uncomfortable. But Ben has always just accepted it. He's brushed tears away, or kissed them as they ran down her cheeks, but he's never told her to stop. At most he'll whisper, "shhh..." while rubbing little circles on her back--whether they're watching _Up_ together on her couch or an especially moving video of a turtle and bird becoming best friends on YouTube. 

Tonight when she cries, he just holds her, runs his hands up and down her sides, and across her back, pulling her tight against him. 

When they do stumble past stacks of photo albums and more books (including a couple of her college French textbooks) to find her bed, Ben sits on the edge, pulling her towards him so he can nuzzle against her belly. 

"I missed you so much," she whispers.

"I missed you too. Let me show you how much, Leslie."

Minutes later she's coming against his mouth and tongue, her fingers pulling lightly at his hair. They make out for a few more lazy minutes, before she encourages Ben to cover her, missionary-style, a position which Leslie has never been a huge fan of, but right now, it's all she wants--Ben's comforting weight on top of her, surrounding her, her legs wrapped around him tightly as they move together. When he kisses her, she can smell her scent all over his face and it's so erotic, it makes her breath hitch and her calves push against him, pulling him in deeper.

It's only much later, when they're all tangled up together in her bedding, in that snugly, comfortable, almost-falling asleep state, that she realizes that this could all go away tomorrow. 

Leslie spends the next hour or so feeling much more awake, softly talking to him, telling him that she loves him, how much she's missed him, how much she wants him to still be in her bed in the morning. Ben is mostly asleep, even snoring at times throughout her words, but the first time she says, "I love you," he stirs groggily, asks if she said something. 

Leslie just smiles and snuggles closer to him, kisses his temple, and tells him to go back to sleep. 

He doesn't. Instead he reaches for her, turns on his side so that they're facing each other, and slides his hand up the inside of her thigh. His fingers wander up to where they were just joined a couple of hours ago, while hers work down his stomach and to where he's already half-hard. She runs her thumb lightly over the head, smiling at his shudder and moan. 

It's just so easy for Leslie to forget the past twenty-something days. To just live in the moment of her and Ben in her bed right now.

"Do I need to wear you out some more? So that you'll actually fall asleep?" he teases, looking fairly tired but also definitely turned-on, before leaning his head down to take one of her nipples between his lips. Ben's fingers continue to slide, circle, and push in below. Within a few minutes, he's guiding her to straddle his lap, sink down on him, and they're fitting together again, so perfectly.

Later, when Ben does finally fall into a deep sleep, she quietly gets up, throws on a t-shirt, and goes into the kitchen to make herself some coffee. 

Despite Leslie's best efforts, she falls asleep at some point because when she wakes up, it's not to the very familiar sounds of stripper math, but to Ben lightly stroking his fingers along the exposed curve of her hip.

"I turned off your alarm," he admits, looking down at her like he can't quite believe he's here and touching her so intimately--so freely after months of not seeming to be able to handle even being in the same room with her.

"Okay," she replies, sleepily. Then asks, "what time is it?" before she sits up in a rush and grabs her phone from the bedside. 

The date on the small screen says November 18, while Ben answers her question with, "just after seven."

She practically giggles and although she's sure she has what must be horrible coffee-sleep-morning breath, she turns and kisses Ben lightly but heart-felt on the lips. Because morning kisses before brushing can still be nice but the same morning kisses with tongue are just kind of gross.

"I was thinking...it's Friday," he continues when she pulls away, kind of oblivious to how giddy and relieved she is. "Nothing really happens on Fridays. Why don't we both take the day off and get out of town for the weekend. Maybe check out those towels you like so much at the Grandville Hotel?" He smiles, then shrugs. "Or we could go to Chicago. Or rent a cabin by Lake Monroe? I know it's a little snowy but..."

"You want to go away for the weekend?" She asks. Then confirms, "With me?"

He laughs. "Um, yes. Well, at first I was thinking maybe with Kathy Ireland? But since you're here and already mostly naked..." he says, fingering the hem of her Li'l Sebastian t-shirt, the only thing she's wearing at the moment--which is currently bunched up around her waist, so it's really not hiding much.

Leslie makes a face. Giggles again before she gets serious. "But Ben, we need to talk about how to do this--"

"We do...but not until, maybe Sunday afternoon. We should just get away for a day or two. Reconnect."

"Didn't we do that last night? A couple of times?" She teases, starting to relax into this--this amazing Friday the 18th of November.

"We did," he grins, taking her hand and entwining his fingers with hers. "But I really want to do it some more."


	4. This is How it Ends

Right after April takes all of Ben's yogurts out of the refrigerator Friday morning, opens them, and dumps them into one big tupperware container for something she likes to call _Ben's yogurt-surprise!_ , her phone makes a chirping noise. She takes it out of her pocket to check her message screen, thinking it will be Natalie trying to scam a ride this morning. It's not.

Orin: It's over. 

She makes a face. It seems like she should know what he's talking about but she can't quite remember. So she starts typing.

April: What?

Orin: The loop. It broke last night at 6:12. 

At first, she doesn't know what Orin means. What loop? 

She has a vague memory of coming home the previous evening to Ben locked in the bathroom taking one of his lame sadness baths, so she had gone over to Orin's house to pee. But, that can't be right--because Ben didn't come home last night at all. She also somehow remembers talking to Orin about how to fix her stupid bathroom situation, yet also having a marshmallow war with Andy in the living room at the same time. 

That's strange and interesting. 

And then...she can just barely recall what he's talking about. If she concentrates really hard. 

April: How long did it take?

Orin: 24 days.

She rolls her eyes, opens the fridge, grabs a plastic bottle, and adds a healthy squirt of Sriracha to the container with vanilla, strawberry, and lemon yogurts, before mixing it all together for an _extra_ surprise. 

She's sure at least fifteen of those days were somehow Ben's fault.

April: You were right, I had no idea it was happening. It was seriously, just yesterday when we talked about it.

April: Hey, what did you do during all that time?

Orin: Thought about things. 

April: Cool.

She puts her phone back in her pocket. 

Well, that would explain why Ben didn't make it home, she thinks, trying very hard to hide a small smile which quickly turns into a disgusted look when she realizes that's because he probably spent the whole evening having extra gross, super-mushy, make-up sex with Leslie. 

She shudders and adds a healthy tablespoon of salt to the bowl. Just as she's giving Ben's yogurt one more stir, Andy walks up behind her and put his arms around her sides. 

"Babe! Hey, what's that? Can I have some?" He reaches forward to shove a finger down in the vaguely-peach colored substance.

"No, it's for Ben," she says, shooing him away.

"Oh! _Yogurt-surprise!_ You know, I don't think he likes it when you do that," Andy says, while April puts the lid on top of the container and sets it on a shelf in the fridge. "But okay, let's make some strawberry pop-tarts then."

"Okay," she agrees, before he surrounds her in a big bear hug, and swings her around the kitchen.

"Stooooop..." 

He doesn't, though. Andy gives her a big sloppy kiss instead, but April doesn't really mind.

**Author's Note:**

> Um, this is kind of experimental? And obviously an AU of sorts. Nods (large and small) to Groundhog Day, the Buffy episode Life Serial, and The Big Lebowski.
> 
> Also, I always assumed that the night they met at the Smallest Park was a Friday (because then they had all weekend for the hot, back-together sex before they had to tell Chris), but that wouldn't really work for this. So I made it a Thursday.
> 
> And when I started it, I really didn't know it was Orin (and April) that made the time loop. It just happened when I thought about an ending that had April wonder why Ben didn't come home Thursday night. But then it seemed like, _of course it was Orin! He knows when you are going to die AND he can make time loops._


End file.
